How to check a community's record yourself
Short answer
North Carolina's Division of Health Service Regulation publishes a free Regulated Facilities search for license status, plus a separate Adult Care Home Inspections, Ratings and Penalties tool for compliance history. Nursing homes additionally carry the federal CMS Five-Star rating; adult care homes do not.
| NC DHSR Regulated Facilities search | info.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/facilities/search.asp — find any licensed adult care home, family care home, or nursing home by county, city, or name, and view its facility record. |
|---|---|
| NC DHSR Adult Care Home Inspections, Ratings and Penalties | info.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/acls/star/search.asp — NC's own compliance-based star rating, inspection reports, and penalties from the last 36 months. |
| CMS Care Compare | For nursing homes specifically, the federal Five-Star Quality Rating System at medicare.gov/care-compare adds a nationally standardized score that adult care homes do not receive. |
| DHSR Complaint Intake line | 1-800-624-3004 (in NC) or 919-855-4500, 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. weekdays, except holidays |
The gap to know about. Because adult care homes are not covered by CMS
Five-Star, there is no single, cross-state-comparable quality score for assisted living in North
Carolina the way there is for nursing homes. NC's own ACLS tool is the closest equivalent, and it
is narrower and North-Carolina-specific.
What to actually look at once you are in there
Pulling the record is easy. Reading it usefully is the part nobody explains.
- Match the license type to your parent's needs, not just to today. Ask directly about admission and retention criteria.
- Check the licensee name against the operator. Ownership turns over regularly, and buildings are often marketed under a brand that differs from the license holder.
- Read deficiency narratives, do not count citations. A missing signature and an injured resident can appear in the same document, formatted identically.
- Look for repetition across surveys. One citation is an incident. The same finding across consecutive surveys is a pattern.
